Friday, June 17, 2016

Nothing today

30 comments:

Critics: Kiss my a--
said...

They might be the most entertaining team in baseball. The celebrations + Dusty's chewing face are unparalleled. MW's twisted face always look liked he had just rubbed icy hot on his package & then would proceed to be pissed off the whole time..

I'll kick it off. I was really excited to see Bryce hit that homer to left yesterday. I've been meaning to post it here the past couple days but it looked like recently he'd been pulling off that pitch early. He would foul it off and the almost fall toward the first base dugout, like he was trying to pull those outside pitches to left.

Part of what made him such a monster last year was him standing in on those pitches and striding straight forward or even in towards the plate. He's strong enough that even if he just gets a piece of it like the pitch last night, it can go out of the park. I know a big part of his season last year were godly numbers to the pull side, and selecting pitches that he could hit to the pull side. But it was clear in these past couple weeks that the book on him had changed to keeping stuff outside on him. Last night tells me his counter-adjustment is in progress.

^ Agree 100% - great observation. Excited to see Bryce go the other way, hoping that hit is the start of him going back to what made him so successful last year. Also wondering if Felipe Rivero is pitching himself out of spot on this team...

Can we talk about how stupid All Star fan votes are? The fact that Bryce Harper is the lead vote-getter on the Nats (and not Ramos or Murphy, as it should be) is a great example of how dumb this is. I mean, obviously Bryce is great, but basically the Cubs fans are jazzed, so the NL All-Star team is going to be mostly Cubs. Yes, they're good, but every Cub is not the best player in the league. And the AL will be mostly Red Sox. The incentive is for teams to push their fans to vote for their own players.

When you're picking players on the ballot in the app, you get avg, hr, rbi, and sb to compare. Why not a simple slash line? So dumb. I would enjoy the ASG so much more if I didn't feel like the starters were picked by a bunch of homers.

Shouldn't the all-star team be whatever the majority of fans want it to be? It's an honor, certainly. But there aren't many people outside DMV who know who Wilson Ramos is, let alone want to watch him play.

It isn't about merit. It's about public interest. It's a television show. Molina and Posey are household names. Ramos isn't. Harper is. Murphy is, too.

So, Ramos is the second best catcher in the NL. If he keeps it up he might end up with a silver slugger, and more importantly, a massive pile of money.

Kenny B. I would beg to differ for two reasons. First, Bryce Harper actually has been more valuable according to WAR than Murphy or Ramos this year. The reason is he has been the second best defensive right fielder in baseball after jason Heyward (mostly due to the fact that no base runner ever takes 2 bases on a single to him. Like ever, and when they try he throws them out...plus excellent range), and the fact that even though we don't think of him as hitting that well, he still has a higher OBP than Ramos and Murphy, and not making outs is the biggest key to run production. Plus he's slugging at .500, which is actually great (even if it's not what we're used to). I know it's hard to believe given his last month or so, but Bryce has a similar OPS to Cespedes and folks like that. Ramos has been phenomenal, but he also has played way fewer games, and Murphy is a horrible defender. I still think Murphy should start and Ramos deserves to be an AS.Second, though, the All-Star game above all is a marketing event for the game and needs to have as many of the marquee stars as possible. Even if Bryce did NOT deserve to be on the team this year (make no mistake, he does according to WAR), I would put him on the team unless he was dreadful. For example, Stanton probably shouldn't be on the team this year.

I get that it's tough to balance marquee stars versus the actual best players at the time of selection. What bugs me is when one city is jazzed and you get an ASG that is basically the two most popular teams playing each other, with a couple of marquee players tossed in for good measure.

Bryce is good enough to make it, but if a player like Ramos can't get in when he's having a season like Ramos is having, then how does one even become a "marquee player?" Murphy virtually carried that Nats offense through May by himself, *and* is a household name due to a stellar October last year, but he ends up edged out because a bunch of homers in Chicago are really jazzed about the Cubs inevitable playoff loss later this year. And for whatever reason, people in Kansas City have nothing better to do than vote for the All-Star Game.

And then there's the whole, "you can vote 50 times" or whatever it is. That is NOT how voting works. It's just a marketing stunt, and then it decides home field advantage for the WS. It's like the worst blend of "marketing stunt," "showcase for the game," and "actually important baseball game."

It's not all just about being a marquee player, there's a legitimate case for Zobrist and Lucroy being better than Ramos and Murphy so far this year. Just because Murph's been the best player on our team doesn't mean he's been the best 2B in the league. And just because Ramos is having a great year doesn't mean someone else is having one just as good or better. If it were best players on each team, irrespective of position, I could see being upset about Murphy and Ramos. But it's a vote by position

Wow Cubs vs red Sox ASG with a few marquee names sprinkled in.. That makes me think, I'd love to see when those two play each other. Two most obnoxious, rude, inconsiderate fan bases by most accounts (Phillies would usually be right there arguable at the top of the list, but they've cooled down since the team has fallen from their glory days of 07-11

At what point do the Nats start to feel comfortable with the division lead? The Mets are now 6 back and playing terribly. The Nats already ended one NL team's season (Phillies). Could the division be decided by the All-Star break?

@Hursty: the Nats have I believe 7 games against the Mets before the AS game. That means they could probably put them away if (say), they go 6-1 or even 5-2 against them. Hard to come back from a 8-10 game deficit. But that also means the Mets could play well against us and tighten the lead a lot before the break.

Sure but I can't really see a case for keeping Ramos off the team. Posey should start because he's a hall of famer who's on a great team and is outstanding. Lucroy and Ramos are having comparably excellent years. And then there's Molina, who's not been as good but he's Molina. I think the NL team carries at least 4 catchers. It should be those 4.

So... I'm going to repost what I said earlier in this thread and hope that management sees it?

- "Also wonder if Felipe Rivero is pitching himself out of a spot on this team." -

He's sporting Brett Oberholzer numbers. Not interested if he was good last year or good early on this year. He's had more bad games than Papelbon yet people want to lynch him and say Rivero's overworked? That may be the case, but I say he's a 5-run inning away from...oh wait. Thanks dude.

@Ole PBN, the reason we want to run Pap out of town and give Felipe a pass is personality. We have no non-baseball reason to dislike Felipe, and he has been very good for all but a few weeks of his time on the team. That said, I agree that he would likely benefit from a couple weeks in AAA to iron out mechanical issues and get some rest. Rivero pitching 4 times a week in a dreadful scuffle isn't helping anyone.

Okay, fine. I'll relent on my all star whining. I still wish they would give me better stats to look at in the ballot.

Also, looks like the Mets may be back to third place again. Funny, where are all those Mets trolls that plagued these comments last year? I still don't think the division is even close to settled, but I can still enjoy their silence.